Phil and RatDog Free Downloads for Action on Climate Change

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A recent expedition to the Arctic went to examine ice that from satellite imaging looked very solid and healthy, based on the amount of light being reflected from it. They went to that region and found - slush. Their boat cut through it like it wasn't even there.

Fun fact - 90% of Arctic sea ice is now 2 years old or younger.

No one ever said global warming meant there'd never be snow, another cold winter or the occasional fluctuation. It's always been about the long-term trends and average GLOBAL temperatures, not local, which are still heading in the direction of hotter. (If the eastern US blizzards prove global warming isn't real, did the not-really-winter Olympics in Vancouver prove it is?) Nothing in that regard has changed. Denial of the facts will not change them or forestall the consequences. For more info on the effectiveness of the ostrich technique, see US real estate market ("your home is your best investment - always!"), world energy prices (oil closed at $82/bbl yesterday, creeping back up - it was around $20/bbl most of the nineties) or our current debt.

But feel free to turn back over in your bed and hit the "snooze" button. Never mind the wisps of smoke coming in under the door. That's it, sleep...

Comes at an interesting time for me personally and professionally. My company has just made a deal with the Carbon Neutral Company to buy their particular brand of offsets to make our energy usage "carbon neutral." This replaces our previous approach, buying "GreenE" credits, to promote construction of "green" energy projects, primarily wind farms, something that seemed more "real"/concrete to me than the fuzzy stuff that goes around offsets.

I have mixed feelings about the whole "offset" issue, in that while I think it's a good idea, I have neither direct nor indirect "proof" that it works.

But when I look a the specific projects that our offset money would be funding, they all look worthy to me and would certainly be the types of things that I could support in general, "proof" or not. And I've bought into the idea well enough in the past to have purchased my own "Cool Commute" offsets to plant trees that would, in theory, sequester an equivalent amount of CO2 created by combustion of the gasoline for my commute to work. Does that really work? I don't know...but planting trees is a good thing, regardless.

And so the debate continues...

Thanks for your thoughts ampbegbassplayer.

What are my thoughts? Well never 100% sure about anything.

Look there is never going to be ultimate proof about climate change until and if it is too late. The science is not easy, the variables are many and the timescales too long. And scientists are people too..prone to professional and personal errors like anyone else. There will always be differences of opinion, but the prevailing view is that the climate change is happening, it will have devastating effects on nature and people and that we are to a large extent responsible. The IPCC is not some evil mafia..it has far fewer vested interests than the oil, gas and industrial mafia that tries to discredit them and ignore the evidence.

Look at it this way.

Let us imagine someone with a sick child. They have consulted all the best doctors. They cannot get a 100% diagnosis of what is wrong. Most of the doctors recommend a tough course of treatment: a strict diet, a change of lifestyle, some expensive but not dangerous medicine and a long slow recovery..but for it to work it has to start now. But a few doctors vociferously argue that the problem is just growing pains and it will pass. Meanwhile the child is getting sicker. What would a responsible parent do? Start the treatment or wait and see?

Environmentalists tend to promote the precautionary principle. This states more or less that
it is a better course of action to eliminate the possible causes of a major threat, even if you are not 100% sure of the connection between cause and effect. Interestingly, application of the precautionary principle is a statutory requirement under in European Union law.

And even if we are not certain of the causes,even if we are wrong about climate change, think of the universal benefits of the treatment!

Less waste
Cleaner soil, air and water
Fairer sharing of the resources of this planet
More accountable industry with a better sense of environmental and social responsibility
A stop to the discounting of the environmental costs of industry and development
More creatures and plants for us to share the planet with.

what is wrong with that?

As for carbon trading. I am very suspicious of it. Of course greedy people will try to cash in on it. But unfortunately putting the environment on the market, and putting its financial value ahead of its intrinsic value has been the only way we have to persuade business to get involved. There are some bad cases..there is also some encouraging evidence that it can work.....

so what do you do? Wait and see or start the treatment?

this is from Wikipidia

Edward Paul Abbey (January 29, 1927 – March 14, 1989) was an American author and essayist noted for his advocacy of environmental issues and criticism of public land policies. His best-known works include the novel The Monkey Wrench Gang, which has been cited as an inspiration by radical environmental groups, and the non-fiction work Desert Solitaire. Writer Larry McMurtry referred to Abbey as the "Thoreau of the American West".

I might add one of the inspirational writers of my life and I thought I should add one more quote from him, sure to offend some and sure to have others say "how true"

On sport hunting: "Whenever I see a photograph of some sportsman grinning over his kill, I am always impressed by the striking moral and aesthetic superiority of the dead animal to the live one."

If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.
William Blake